Leon Trotsky: The Transitional
programme

Soviets

Factory committees, as already stated, are elements of dual power
inside the factory. Consequently, their existence is possible only under
conditions of increasing pressure by the masses. This is likewise true of
special mass groupings for the struggle against war, of the committees
on prices, and all other new centers of the movement, the very appearance
of which bears witness to the fact that the class struggle has overflowed the
limits of the traditional organizations of the proletariat.

These new organs and centers, however, will soon begin to feel their lack of
cohesion and their insufficiency. Not one of the transitional demands can be
fully met under the conditions of preserving the bourgeois regime. At the same
time, the deepening of the social crisis will increase not only the sufferings
of the masses but also their impatience, persistence and pressure. Ever new
layers of the oppressed will raise their heads and come forward with their
demands. Millions of toil-worn "little men," to whom the reformist
leaders never gave a thought, will begin to pound insistently on the doors of
the workers' organizations. The unemployed will join the movement. The
agricultural workers, the ruined and semi-ruined farmers, the oppressed of the
cities, the women workers, housewives, proletarianized layers of the
intelligentsia—all of these will seek unity and leadership.

How are the different demands and forms of struggle to be harmonized, even if
only within the limits of one city? History has already answered this question:
through soviets. These will unite the representatives of all the
fighting groups. For this purpose, no one has yet proposed a different form of
organization; indeed, it would hardly be possible to think up a better one.
Soviets are not limited to an a priori party program. They throw open
their doors to all the exploited. Through these doors pass representatives of
all strata, drawn into the general current of the struggle. The organization,
broadening out together with the movement, is renewed again and again in its
womb. All political currents of the proletariat can struggle for leadership of
the soviets on the basis of the widest democracy. The slogan of soviets,
therefore, crowns the program of transitional demands.

Soviets can arise only at the time when the mass movement enters into an
openly revolutionary stage. From the first moment of their appearance, the
soviets, acting as a pivot around which millions of toilers are united in their
struggle against the exploiters, become competitors and opponents of local
authorities and then of the central government. If the factory committee creates
a dual power in the factory, then the soviets initiate a period of dual power in
the country.

Dual power in its turn is the culminating point of the transitional period.
Two regimes, the bourgeois and the proletarian, are irreconcilably opposed to
each other. Conflict between them is inevitable. The fate of society depends on
the outcome. Should the revolution be defeated, the fascist dictatorship of the
bourgeoisie will follow. In the case of victory, the power of the soviets, that
is, the dictatorship of the proletariat and the socialist reconstruction of
society, will arise. [Back to Contents]

Backward Countries and the Program of Transitional Demands

Colonial and semi-colonial countries are backward countries by their very
essence. But backward countries are part of a world dominated by imperialism.
Their development, therefore, has a combined character: the most
primitive economic forms are combined with the last word in capitalist technique
and culture. In like manner are defined the political strivings of the
proletariat of backward countries: the struggle for the most elementary
achievements of national independence and bourgeois democracy is combined with
the socialist struggle against world imperialism. Democratic slogans,
transitional demands and the problems of the socialist revolution are not
divided into separate historical epochs in this struggle, but stem directly from
one another. The Chinese proletariat had barely begun to organize trade unions
before it had to provide for soviets. In this sense, the present program is
completely applicable to colonial and semi colonial countries, at least to those
where the proletariat has become capable of carrying on independent politics.

The central task of the colonial and semi-colonial countries is the agrarian
revolution, i.e., liquidation of feudal heritages, and national
independence, i.e., the overthrow of the imperialist yoke. Both tasks are
closely linked with each other.

It is impossible merely to reject the democratic program; it is imperative
that in the struggle the masses outgrow it. The slogan for a National (or
Constituent) Assembly preserves its full force for such countries as China or
India. This slogan must be indissolubly tied up with the problem of national
liberation and agrarian reform. As a primary step, the workers must be armed
with this democratic program. Only they will be able to summon and unite the
farmers. On the basis of the revolutionary democratic program, it is necessary
to oppose the workers to the "national" bourgeoisie. Then, at a
certain stage in the mobilization of the masses under the slogans of
revolutionary democracy, soviets can and should arise. Their historical role in
each given period, particularly their relation to the National Assembly, will be
determined by the political level of the proletariat, the bond between them and
the peasantry, and the character of the proletarian party policies. Sooner or
later, the soviets should overthrow bourgeois democracy. Only they are capable
of bringing the democratic revolution to a conclusion and likewise opening an
era of socialist revolution.

The relative weight of the individual democratic and transitional demands in
the proletariat's struggle, their mutual ties and their order of presentation,
is determined by the peculiarities and specific conditions of each backward
country and to a considerable extent by the degree of its backwardness.
Nevertheless, the general trend of revolutionary development in all backward
countries can be determined by the formula of the permanent revolution in the
sense definitely imparted to it by the three revolutions in Russia (1905,
February 1917, October 1917).

The Comintern has provided backward countries with a classic example of how
it is possible to ruin a powerful and promising revolution. During the stormy
mass upsurge in China in 1925-27, the Comintern failed to advance the slogan for
a National Assembly, and at the same time forbade the creation of soviets. (The
bourgeois party, the Kuomintang, was to replace, according to Stalin's plan,
both the National Assembly and soviets.) After the masses had been smashed by
the Kuomintang, the Comintern organized a caricature of a soviet in Canton.
Following the inevitable collapse of the Canton uprising, the Comintern took the
road of guerrilla warfare a peasant soviets with complete passivity on the part
of the industrial proletariat. Landing thus in a blind alley, the Comintern took
advantage of the Sino-Japanese War to liquidate "Soviet China" with a
stroke of the pen, subordinating not only the peasant "Red Army" but
also the so-called "Communist" Party to the identical Kuomintang,
i.e., the bourgeoisie.

Having betrayed the international proletarian revolution for the sake of
friendship with the "democratic" slavemasters, the Comintern could not
help betraying simultaneously also the struggle for liberation of the colonial
masses, and, indeed, with even greater cynicism than did the Second
International before it. One of the tasks of People's Front and "national
defense" politics is to turn hundreds of millions of the colonial
population into cannon fodder for "democratic" imperialism. The banner
on which is emblazoned the struggle for the liberation of the colonial and semi
colonial peoples, i.e., a good half of mankind, has definitely passed into the
hands of the Fourth International.